Of Bird Diets, Dangers, and Delinquents
This week in birding news has it all covered. Er, sort of. To wit:
As if beach-nesting birds don’t have enough problems, along comes a new scourge: nudists. Brings a new meaning to the term “shake your tail feathers”!
Disregard what Mary Poppins advises; in Swansea, UK, feeding the birds will cost you (and a whole lot more than tuppence).
Cormorants in the crosshairs—the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers believes thinning their numbers will help save salmon in the Columbia River. (Image above by Peter Wallack/Wikimedia Commons)
Magpies sometimes get a bad rap, but a new study finds that kleptomania shouldn’t be part of it.
Some jerk (I’d use a stronger word, but this is a family-friendly website) in Wisconsin is shooting raptors.
Birding in the Bronx? Yep, at the Dred Scott Bird Sanctuary.
San Francisco aims to study and deter birdstrikes; participants can earn “bird-friendly resident” honors.
Another study, led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in Maine, will use “nano-tags” to track migrating birds.
The USFWS (along with another federal agency) is facing a lawsuit that blames solar-power plants for killing endangered Yuma Clapper Rails and other birds.
Why the hummingbirds at your feeder demand sugar, sugar, and more sugar, even though birds lack a genetic sweet tooth. Science!
In still more food news, pollen traces indicate where birds migrating to Britain make pit stops.